Apr 282014
 

An interesting statistic from Joe Saward in the opening piece of this weeks Motorsport Monday, Issue 60.

He tells us that the winner of the Chinese Grand Prix won it taking 26 seconds more time than last year’s winner. Soem might say that’s a reflection on the new cars being slower than the old ones. Yes it is but, Over the course of the race this would be a tiny fraction „slower“ than last year whilst using about one third less fuel. That’s what the message should be from sports, we can improve things.

Motorsport Monday – MM Issue 60 digital edition.

Apr 182014
 

Remember when .net came out and it was hailed as the end of DLL Hell? Well, it should have been but for various reasons, it hasn’t been.  One of the breaking changes in SQL Server 2008:

SQL Server 2008 installs .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, which updates libraries in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). If you have unsupported libraries registered in a SQL Server database, your SQL Server application may stop working after upgrading to SQL Server 2008. This is because servicing or upgrading libraries in the GAC does not update assemblies inside SQL Server. If an assembly exists both in a SQL Server database and in the GAC, the two copies of the assembly must exactly match. If they do not match, an error will occur when the assembly is used by SQL Server CLR integration.

Breaking Changes to Database Engine Features in SQL Server 2012.

C’est la cotton-picking vie, as we who had to learn french at school are fond of saying.

Apr 152014
 

OpenSource Software was always praised as more secure than typical „closed source“ programs. The reason being that „everybody“ can look into the code and check it for bugs of any kind but especially for security bugs. This bug in OpenSource Software took two years to be discovered.

Nach Heartbleed: OpenSSL-Projekt bittet um Unterstützung | heise Security.

Apr 142014
 

People of the (Web)World, now is your chance… If you happen to discover that your account has been hacked or you think someone has stolen data from your website, you no longer have to blame the NSA, you just point at „Heartbleed“ as no one, other than the perpetrators, will be able to prove you lost the data in some more trivial way (like choosing your password from the names of your kids…) Not that that is what these two sites have done of course.

BBC News – Heartbleed hacks hit Mumsnet and Canada’s tax agency.

Apr 142014
 

A very good freind of mine asked me if I’d like to go and see the Pirates of Penzance in German in Germany…

Theater Münster – Spielplan > Kalender > Die Piraten von Penzance.

Unfortunately, I am allergic to the sound of English songs performed in German. My symptoms aren’t like those of people allergic to apples or to peanuts but my stomach does tend at least try to evacuate itself. This is, of course, a psychosomatic effect as nothing that gets into my ears can be detected as a possible poison by my stomach.

 

Apr 112014
 

Heartbleed-Programmierer: Deutscher schrieb den fehlerhaften Code – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Quote:

Absicht oder nicht?

Zunächst wurde der Name auf Twitter verbreitet, vereinzelte Tweets verlinkten auf den fraglichen Code, kombiniert mit Sätzen wie: „Ich wäre jetzt nicht gern Robin S.“*

Richtig Fahrt nahm die Geschichte in der Szene auf, als der bloggende Hacker Felix von Leitner den – zu diesem Zeitpunkt längst öffentlich auffindbaren – Namen des Mannes und auch dessen gegenwärtigen Arbeitgeber nannte. Verbunden mit dem Verdacht, es könnte sich bei dem Programmierfehler auch um eine gegen Bezahlung absichtlich eingebaute Hintertür handeln: „Aus meiner Sicht riecht das wie eine Backdoor, es schmeckt wie eine Backdoor, es hat die Konsistenz einer Backdoor, und es sieht aus wie eine Backdoor.“

I tend away from such conspiracy theories and towards „bright people make dumb errors“ theories.

Apr 102014
 

I’ve had this song in my head for ages now and someone decided that the next days are Homoeopathy Awareness Week, so, I thought I’d write the song down and get it out of my head. First a link:

Homeopathy Awareness Week, April 10th-16th. Get the facts on homeopathy..

Now the song, it’s based on the old song:

You put your left arm in,your left arm out,
in, out, shake it all about,
you do the hokey-cokey,
and you turn around,
that’s what it’s all about.

Repeat for various parts of the body ending with the whole body.

Now my song,

You put your Arnica in,
your Arnica out,
in, out, in, out,
shake it all about,
your do the hokey-cokey,
and you turn around,
That’s what Homoeopathy’s about.

I know, it doesn’t scan properly. I never said it was a good song, did I?